Some nights it’s easier than others, to stay awake.
He flicks on the TV, watches the purple hues of Roku city float by, eventually finds some 80s movie, lets it play in the background, it’s nice to have something that breaks up the silence.
Settles on Smokey and the Bandit, though instead of watching the screen he reaches for the book he’s tried desperately to make it through-- a copy of the Divine Comedy his sisters had gotten him for his 24th.
They had always hated the way he treated the books he read--cracking the spine and dog-earing the pages.
He’d always said that the wear on a book showed how loved it had been--the best books have the covers falling off from years and years of rereading.
The spine of this one is intact, only one page dog-eared.
His eyes lazily drag across the page he’s opened it to.
Love, that exempts no one beloved from loving,
Seized me with pleasure of this man so strongly,
That, as thou seest, it doth not yet desert me;
Love has conducted us unto one death;
Caina waiteth him who quenched our life”
These words were borne along from them to us.
He has no energy for Dante and his journey through the damned today.
his fingertips ache, subconsciously digging nails into his palms, tiny red crescents forming between his heart line, life line, head line.
little moons making divots through the flesh, disrupting the wrinkles in his palm he’d never learned to read. Had never been spiritual, more along the lines of casual atheism dipped in catholic guilt that took the form of a rosary shoved in the back of his bedside drawer to collect dust.
His youngest sister had been really into astrology for a summer, when she was 16 and he was 18.
all he remembered was something about his Libra moon making him feel the need to connect with the world around him, and that Pisces was the fish sign.
He absently wonders what she would think now, when he’s distanced himself so far from that world.
10 missed calls. 20% battery. 1 new message.
Deep down he knows he should open it, type out some bullshit excuse about how busy it’s been, make amends, even if they both know it’ll happen again.
But he feels just.. In a limbo. Adrift, desperately clinging to the surface of dark, choppy waves as each one threatens to crash over his head, send him down into murky depths. But it’s not waves at all but sweaty sheets of an unmade mattress on the floor of a studio apartment he can’t afford, but wow what a view of the hills from the fire escape at 3am.
Maybe this is how icarus felt when he was mid fall, wax melting, feathers coming undone and floating into the air as he tumbled helplessly toward the water, knowing the end was coming but not knowing when.
constantly hurtling toward a turbulent proverbial ocean, slamming into one mental wall after another, trying to force himself to keep his eyes open because somehow sleeping is worse than this.
His eyes ache.
the growl of the trans am’s engine rips to life on the tv and he jolts, heartbeat suddenly in his ears as he fumbles for the remote, and with a click, Burt Reynolds’ smiling face disappears into black silence.
Okay. maybe no more car movies.
He finds himself on the rickety fire escape, staring up at the moon and absently searching for more than two stars.
Welcome to Hollywoodland, California, where all the stars are on earth, who needs stars in the sky!
Sometimes when he sits up there, perched on the creaking metal grate, there’s an urge to push off--let go. For a moment he entertains the idea, lets his sleep deprived brain believe that he could soar instead of immediately crashing into the cracked street below him.
His eyes try to pull themselves down, down, down, heavy lids ache to become reacquainted with the bruised circles that have taken residence below bloodshot eyes, sunken in the three days since he’s let them truly close, allowed himself to lie his head against a pillow that’s too soft that he worries it will dissolve between his fingers.
He sways slightly, and the view of the ground below him jolts him back to attention. Stands to climb back into his grimy window, flip the TV back on and this time just watch the purple city screensaver of the TV float by.
He wonders what rent is like in Roku city.
Pushes the thoughts of melting wax and floating feathers to the back of his head, shoves them into that drawer with Libra moons and dusty rosaries.
Maybe it would go away if he would just sleep, but in all his dreams he falls.
The weightless feeling before his body jolts him back awake and it’s 4am, sits in his bed until the birds wake up and light streams through naked windows.